Wire drawing annealers

ABSTRACT

In a wire drawing resistance annealer a guide sheave is obliquely mounted on a horizontal axis upstream of the first contact pulley so that essentially all points of the pulley surface are contacted by the wire.

United States Patent 1191 Barone 5] Mar. 26, 1974 WIRE DRAWING ANNEALERS 2,726,971 12/1955 OGrady 219/155 x 3,413,834 12/1968 Kovaleski 242/158.1 X [75] Angel Bamnet De Kalb 3,s1s,405 6/1970 Herren et al 339/8 R x [73'] Assignee: The Anaconda Company, New

York, N.Y. Primary Examiner-Roy Lake [22] Flled 1973 Assistant Examiner-Paul H. Bell [21] Appl. N0.: 321,062 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Victor F. Volk [52] US. Cl 266/3 R, 219/155, 242/157.l, 242/ 158 R 51] rm. c1 C2ld 9/62 [57] ABSTRACT [58] Field of Search 219/155; 339/5 R, 5 L,

339/8 R, 8 L, 11 l; 242/ 158 R, 157.1, 54; In a wire drawing resistance annealer a guide sheave is 266/3 R obliquely mounted on a horizontal axis upstream of the first contact pulley so that essentially all points of [56] References Cit d the pulley surface are contacted by the wire.

UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,195,859 4/1940 Gent 242/54 R 3 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures v WIRE DRAWING ANNEALERS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION suitable slip rings and brushes or the like so that an electric current passes through the length of wire that is instantaneously moving between the two pulleys, sufflcient to heat the wire to a preselected annealing temperature. Known types of such annealers, however, suffer a defect in that severe sparking occurs between the wire being annealed and one or more of the electrode pulleys. This sparking corrodes and pits the pulley surface with progressively worsening effect, since oxide deposits on the surface of the pulley reduce the contact area and increase the incidence of sparking. This problem is more troublesome for annealing aluminum wire the oxide .of which has high electrical resistivity.

lt has been known to provide electrode pulleys with broad flat circumferential rim surfaces on which the wire being annealed will ride and make electrical contact with the pulley. This has the advantage that, since a greater pulley contacting surface is available to the moving wire, it takes a long time for the entire surface to become pitted or oxidized. A mechanical traverse with a finger type of wire guide reciprocating across the width of the pulley face has been used to distribute the wire contactingpoints over the entire surface. Reciprocating traverse mechanisms have, however, failedto operate satisfactorily. This failure is not entirely unexpected since the environment of a wire drawing machine resistance annealer is very severe due to the high temperatures and humidity generated by the water quench which, in usual practice, directly follows the heating cycle.

SUMMARY The present improvement is directed to a wire drawing annealer having a reliable, trouble free traverse means with. a minimum of mechanical parts.

My traverse can be made by inexpensive machining of standard parts, can be readily insulated or mounted on insulators, and is self traversing so that no motor drive is required. In my improvement of apparatus for continuously resistance annealing wire directly downstream of a wire drawing machine comprising first and second contact pulleys mounted on horizontal axes for introducing heating currents into the wire, where the upstream of the pulleys has a contact surface at least several times wider than the diameter of the wire, I have invented the improvement of a guide sheave for the wire mounted directly upstream of the upstream pulley and mounted obliquely on a horizontal axis so that the sheave directs the wire to contact different points across the width of the pulley surface. Preferably the sheave will have a diameter substantially less than the upstream pulley diameter and a circumference that is not integrally divisible into the circumference of the pulley.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 shows a side view of the apparatus of my invention.

FIG. 2 shows an enlarged view including the sheave 31 ofFlG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows a section through the lines 3-3, of FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG. 1 an apparatus of my invention indicated generally by the numeral 10 is shown for annealing a wire 11 continuously advancing over a grounded guide pulley 12 from a drawing machine, not shown. An electrode pulley l3, supplied by a current source, not shown, passes current through the wire to the grounded pulley l2 and a submerged grounded pulley 16. The pulley 16 is submerged in a cooling water bath 17 having an upper surface 18. Resistance of a length 19 of the wire 11 between a tangent point 21 on the pulley l3 and the surface 18 is much lower than the resistance of a length 22 of the wire 11 between a tangent point 23 on the pulley l3 and a tangent point 24 on the pulley 12. This length 22 is deliberately increased by insulated deflecting pulleys 26, 27, 28 to increase the resistance of the length 22. Because of this difference in the resistance of the lengths 22 and 19, the former is not annealed but merely preheated while the heavy current passing through the length 19 heats it to annealing temperature. On leaving the pulley 16 the wet annealed wire passes over a pulley 29 coaxial to, but insulated from, the pulley 13. Thence, the wire passes to take up or processing means, not shown. An essential feature of my invention resides in an insulated sheave 31 upstream of the pulley 13, shown in more detail in FIGS. 2 and 3. It is economical to provide insulating properties to the pulleys 26, 27, 28 merely by constructing them of reinforced plastic, ceramic or other nonconducting material and one of the same types of pulleys as the pulleys 26, 27, 28 can be moditied for use as the sheave 31. The simplicity of the necessary modification, which will be explained hereinbelow adds greatly to the value of the present invention. As best seen in FIG. 3, the pulley has a broad flat contact surface 32. Typically, for processing wire from 0.016 0.040 inches in diameter, the width of the surface 32 will be one-half inch. The sheave 31, guiding wire onto this surface, is mounted to rotate on an axle 33 having a horizontal axis parallel to the axes of axles 34, 36 mounting the pulleys 13, 16 and 29. The plane of the sheave 31 is not normal to axle 33, however, but forms an oblique angle, a, with the axis sufficient that one rotation of the sheave 31 will cause the rim of the sheave to span the width of the surface 32.

To make my sheave 31 it is sufficient merely to use a commercially available pulley such as the reinforced plastic pulleys 26-28, remove the existing hub, and drill a hole 37, at the desired oblique angle to the plane of the pulley for receiving a standard bearing 38 for mounting on the axle 33. A plurality of bent brackets 39 reinforce the mounting of the sheave 31 upon the ball bearing 38, but other known reinforcing means may be used within the scope of my invention. Instead of insulating the sheave 31 by forming it of dielectric material other means may be used within the scope of my invention such as forming the axle 33 of nonconducting material, or mounting the axle 33 in insulators.

The sheave 31 is substantially smaller than the pulley 13, in diameter but its diameter is not integrally divisible into the diameter of the pulley, i.e., does not form such a simple fraction of the pulley diameter that wire leaving a given point on the sheave will too repeatedly contact the same point on the pulley surface 32, since the contact tangent point 23 defines the areas of spark generation.

I have made the foregoing description exemplary rather than definitive of my invention for which I desire an award of Letters Patent as defined in the following claims.

I claim:

1. In an apparatus for continuously resistanceannealing wire directly downstream of a wire drawing machine comprising first and second contact pulleys mounted on horizontal axes for introducing heating current into said wire, the upstream of said pulleys having a contact surface at least several times wider than the diameter of said wire, the improvement comprising:

circumference of said upstream pulley. 

1. In an apparatus for continuously resistance-annealing wire directly downstream of a wire drawing machine comprising first and second contact pulleys mounted on horizontal axes for introducing heating current into said wire, the upstream of said pulleys having a contact surface at least several times wider than the diameter of said wire, the improvement comprising: A. a guide sheave for said wire mounted directly upstream of said upstream pulley, B. said sheave being mounted obliquely on a horizontal axis, thereby directing said wire to contact different points across the width of said surface.
 2. The improvement of claim 1 wherein said sheave has a diameter substantially less than the diameter of said upstream pulley.
 3. The improvement of claim 2 wherein the circumference of said sheave is not integrally divisible into the circumference of said upstream pulley. 